Universal Constants
by northernexposure
Summary: Set during and after the season three episode 'Point of View'. Janet Fraiser tries to help two versions of a dear friend. Janet/Sam friendship with a hint of Sam/Jack angst.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N** Well, it seems as if I've plunged straight down the SG-1 FF rabbit hole, when I really should be writing other things. This could be read as a continuation of the Sam/Janet friendship thread I started in 'Born Lucky'.

* * *

A year later, and this time Janet doesn't need a grapevine to tell her anything. She sees at least part of the craziness play out right in front of her. Doctor Samantha Carter is so like her namesake and yet at the same time so utterly different, a woman dealing with trauma and grief of such magnitude that her pain is almost tangible. It pulses from her in waves, making this alternate version of Sam Carter emotionally volatile, which is perfectly natural given the circumstances. To say she and Kowalski have been through a lot would be an understatement.

Janet's the one who is left to pick up the pieces when Hammond and the Colonel depart the infirmary after that first visit. The woman on the bed dissolves into floods of silent tears as soon as the echo of their boots has faded into the SGC's usual ambient noise. She curls onto her side, pulls her knees up to her chest, covers her face with both hands and sobs, her blonde hair spreading out across the pillow like a pennant stretched out in the wind. She's wracked with the kind of bone-deep agony that Janet has dealt with in her own life, as Cassie processed the deaths of her entire family, of everyone she ever knew, of her entire planet. Many are the nights that Fraiser has sat in her adopted daughter's bed, holding her small frame as it tries to deal with the enormity of a loss that no one should ever have to bear and that no psychologist on earth could possibly provide counsel for.

"Doctor Carter?" she asks, softly, crossing to the woman's side and resting one hand gently on her shoulder. "I really think you need rest. I can give you a mild sedative to help you sleep."

"No," comes the reply. "I don't want to sleep, Janet. I _can't_ sleep, not when-" Samantha Carter rolls onto her back, wiping her face, trying to pull the broken pieces of herself together. "I'm sorry. I'm a mess."

Fraiser notes the use of her first name and wonders what sort of relationship they have – had – back in that other reality. She loves the Sam Carter she knows: her fierce intelligence, how tough she is, her kindness, her blank inability to understand just how beautiful she is, her sense of fun. Janet can't imagine knowing her and not loving her, and nothing she's seen of this Sam Carter so far suggests enough of a difference to matter in that respect. "You have nothing to apologise for. But I don't know how I can help you other than medically."

Doctor Carter levers herself up. "Can you talk to me, just a little?"

Fraiser's instantly on her guard. "I'm sorry – I'd have to clear that with General Hammond first."

"It's not about the SGA – _SGC_ ," Sam corrects herself. "I just want to know a little about Jack."

"Jack?" For a second, Janet's mind goes blank, and then she catches up. "You mean… Colonel Jack O'Neill?"

Sam nods, and her eyes fill with tears again. "I just – I didn't expect to see him. I hadn't even thought about it, even though I should have realised it could be a permutation. I guess I was just too busy holding myself together to consider it, but now… It's _so_ hard, Janet, it's so hard to deal with. I just want to know enough to handle it. That's all."

Janet studies her face for a moment, sees the raw emotion there, and knows that a very large can of worms about to be tipped all over her clean infirmary floor.

"Colonel O'Neill – he's dead in your reality?"

Something convulses in Sam's eyes and she just nods, as if speaking is momentarily too difficult.

"I'm sorry."

"There's a Samantha Carter here, in this reality, isn't there?"

"Yes, there is. Major Samantha Carter."

" _Major_ Carter? She's military?"

"Yes. She's second in command of SG-1."

Sam nods, blinks back more tears. "So I was right. It's not the same with us here."

"I'm not sure what you mean."

She wipes her hand over her face again, takes a breath. "When he walked in… there was no warmth from him. Just shock. He didn't move closer, didn't take my hand, nothing. But I suppose that makes sense if he thought he was looking at his second in command instead of his wife."

Janet's heart turns over in her chest. "His… wife?"

"You were my best woman at the wedding." Samantha Carter smiles slightly. "We both thought 'maid of honour' was a stupid title for this century."

Janet nods, a little stunned, trying to process this information and at the same time thinking _If this is my reaction, what the hell is it going to do to the two of them?_

"I had to watch him die, Janet," Doctor Carter whispers. "He was topside, trying to defend the mountain. He took a staff weapon blast to the stomach. I couldn't get to him. No one could. He lay there, dying, _in pain_ , and all I could do was watch it happen on the monitor. And it was _my fault_. It was all my fault, because I couldn't work out how to stop them, I knew they were coming for _months_ and I just couldn't-"

She breaks off, incoherent with grief and guilt, and even though it's not 'her' Sam, Janet can't stop herself putting her arms around this woman who has been her friend through at least two realities. Samantha Carter holds on to her and sobs into her shoulder for more than a minute. When eventually she pulls back, she looks into Janet's face with her fractured heart clear in her eyes.

"Oh, Janet," she says, her voice breaking. "How am I going to bear it? How am I going to walk into a room, see him and not break down into a sobbing wreck like this? I just want to hold him, I just want him to hold _me_ , and I know it's not my Jack, I _know_ it isn't, but at the same time it is. Oh, it _is_ …"

Janet doesn't have an answer and so she pulls Sam against her again, trying to weather most of the storm. She wonders how her Sam will find out about this and wants it to be soon – preferably before the briefing, or at least in a way that means her friend isn't finding out about it at the same time as the Colonel, in front of other people. She remembers the last time they encountered the quantum mirror. Janet would be willing to bet that no one else at the SGC – least of all O'Neill himself - saw how off-balance the information from that doomed version of Earth knocked their Sam, but she knows. She'd like to call Sam right now, herself, she'd like to be the one to explain, to give her Sam a chance to get her first reaction out there in the presence of company that won't matter. But Janet's first duty is to her patients and right now that's _this_ Carter.

She sits with Doctor Carter until Kowalski returns from his latest check-up. When the airman sees the figure on the bed, his face creases into such an expression of sympathy that Janet feels comfortable leaving Sam in his care. She squeezes Carter's shoulder again and walks to where Kowalski is waiting for her out of earshot.

"How's she doing, Doc?"

"As well as can be expected, under the circumstances. It might help if you can sit with her a while."

"Sure thing." Kowalski clenches his jaw, then releases it. "I served with Jack O'Neill for years. He was the best guy I ever knew. Hell of a soldier. And he never talked much about all that stuff, but the day he met Sam Carter, I think some light went on somewhere for him, you know? He loved her with everything he had, quietly, like what they had was the bedrock that held everything together. Maybe on paper it wouldn't make sense, but the two of them just fit. A lot of guys at the SGA, they didn't get how tough she is. But he did. Before he went topside that last time I told him I'd make sure she was safe, and you know what he said? 'Kowalski, the day my wife needs someone to look after her we might as well all give up the ghost.' She'll be OK. But seeing him again, so soon, alive and well and he doesn't _know_ her – that's got to be hella tough, right?"

Janet watches him for a second, thinking _it's the quiet love that keeps us alive and kills us at the same time, always_. "I'm sorry for your loss, too, lieutenant."

Kowalski gives her a pale smile. "Is your Jack O'Neill as good as ours was, Doc?"

She remembers that awful time when more than half the base had regressed to their base state, remembers O'Neill's fingers gentle against her jaw, fighting with everything he had left just to beg her to use him as a lab rat. "Yes. He is."

Kowalski nods and digs his hands in his pockets, his shoulders squaring as if somehow this information is both important and completely what he expected.

"Sure you've got rounds, Doc," he says then. "I'll stay with Sam."

He walks to Carter's bedside and sits, taking her hand. They lean together, talking quietly. Janet watches for another moment and then turns away. Something in her chest won't be quiet, an unease that twists and turns. She goes into her office and dials the extension for Sam's lab, but Carter's already in the briefing room.

[TBC]


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** This went a bit off-piste from where I thought it was going. Hope it's not rubbish.

* * *

It's disconcerting to see both women working side by side in Major Carter's lab. Aside from the hair and, if one were to look closely enough, the rings on Doctor Carter's left hand, the two are identical. The first time she visits, Janet stands at the door for a moment, listening to the hubbub of their virtually identical voices as they talk through a particular problem they've encountered in the Asgard system. Janet's relieved – and also full of admiration - to see how well the SGC's Sam Carter seems to be weathering the strangeness. Janet wishes there was time to pull her friend aside, to find out how she's really doing, but there isn't.

It's her second visit that sets off a warning klaxon in Janet's mind, and that has nothing to do with either Sam.

She turns the corner towards Carter's laboratory to find Colonel O'Neill standing in the dim light just outside the door. He's got his hands bunched in his pockets, nonchalant to anyone who doesn't know how to read him, but Janet's seen enough to recognise the tension in his shoulders. She wonders how long he's been standing there, and whether he's hesitating or watching, whether the difference between these two things is something she should worry about. Then he hears the click of her heels and turns towards her, and the grimace on his face tells her it's the latter and that yes, she should. The twist of unease in her chest screws itself a little deeper.

"Doc," he says, quietly. "Come to check on the patient?"

"Yes, Colonel," she tells him, matching his volume. "And you, sir?"

He flicks her a look. For a second she thinks he might say something honest, something serious, but then he raises one eyebrow and what comes out of his mouth is, "Genius scientists. Twins. Fabric of the universe stuff. Am I the only one that thinks this sounds like the start of a horror movie?"

Janet smiles a little. "I wouldn't worry about that, sir. Major Carter's never stepped out of line in her life. I'm not sure she'd know how to even if the notion occurred to her."

She hadn't meant it as a warning shot, not really, and O'Neill makes no indication that he's taken it as such. But he gives her a small nod and an even smaller smile.

"Well, let's just thank our lucky stars that those two aren't as easily confused as I am, eh, Doctor?"

He turns and walks away. Janet watches him go and prays to high heaven that she didn't see what she suspects she did, and if she did, she hopes he has the good sense to go out and roll the first willing woman he can find as many times as necessary, because for both their sakes he cannot ever contemplate Sam Carter as anything other than his second in command. Not for a minute, not even for a second.

Not in this life.

Doctor Carter comes to see her before the team departs on the mission through the quantum mirror. They hug as if they're the old friends they never quite were, wishing each other well.

"Thank you," Sam says. "For everything."

"You're welcome," Janet tells her with a smile that hides the dual sensations of relief and anxiety that are stirring in her gut. "Take care of yourself, Sam. Try to be safe."

"The first chance I get, I'm going to find you," Sam tells her. "Colorado Springs didn't get hit from orbit. I bet you're still out there somewhere, doing what you can." She gives Janet one last hug and then heads for the door, where she pauses and turns back, twisting her wedding ring around her finger, a frown creased between her eyes. After a moment she says, "I can't imagine there's anyone else on Earth I could ever love the way I love Jack O'Neill. What if it's the same here?"

Janet doesn't have an answer for that.

She knows they've been successful because she's still on duty when O'Neill, Teal'c and Daniel Jackson appear in the infirmary for their post-mission check-ups. There's no sign of Sam, but then she didn't go through the mirror, so there's no need for her to be. O'Neill's preoccupied by something – quieter than usual after one of SG-1's successes – but Janet puts that down to the fact that he's probably got some pretty hefty stuff to work through. Whatever happened over there, it was a glimpse into what could happen here should they fail to defend Earth from the Goa'uld, after all. A case of a little too much perspective, perhaps. She considers suggesting a counselling session or two, but already knows how that will be received. She'll keep an eye on him, instead, see how things pan out. She can always refer him later if she feels the need.

"That's it, Colonel," Janet tells him. "You're clear to go."

She expects him to wait for Daniel and Teal'c, but instead he slides off the bed and leaves without a word, hands in his pockets, head dipped. Janet watches him go and then turns back to his teammates.

"Did something happen that I should know about?"

The brief look that passes between the two men tells her the answer is most definitely yes.

"No," says Daniel. "I can't think of anything. Can you, Teal'c?"

Teal'c raises an eyebrow, as if thinking seriously about the question, and then slowly shakes his head. "Daniel Jackson is correct, Doctor Fraiser. The mission went as planned. There is nothing further to add."

She smiles grimly, snapping off one glove after another. _Thick as thieves, loyal to the death_. "All right. You can go too. Get some rest, both of you."

When her shift is finally over, Janet stops by the lab. This time there's only one blonde head bent over the workbench. Carter's consumed with a silent, single-minded concentration, her fingers deep in the guts of a naquada reactor the Tok'ra handed over a while ago and that she's been trying to retro engineer. She starts a little when Janet touches her shoulder.

"Hey," Janet says. "So the mission went as planned, then. That's good."

"Yeah," Sam's attention slides back to the mess on her workbench. "Yeah, it's good."

"Everything okay?" Janet asks, after a moment.

"Fine," Sam says, a beat too quickly. "I just… Sorry, Janet, I just really need to get on with this, it's been taking up too much time."

"Sure," Janet says. "I'll see you soon. Make sure you get some rest, okay?"

"I will."

Janet leaves her to it, hoping that the work will do its job and get Sam through whatever it is she needs to process.

Two days later, though, Janet's signing off the last of the case notes from the day's shift when Sam appears at her office door. One look at her is enough to tell Janet that her recommendation for rest has gone unheeded. Sam's eyes are ringed with dark circles that speak of sleepless nights and anxiety. Her skin is pale.

"Janet," she says, quietly. "Could you maybe spare a little time?"

"Absolutely. Come in, shut the door. Sit down."

Sam looks over her shoulder, out towards the infirmary. It's quiet, but that doesn't seem to be enough. "Not here," she says. "Aren't you getting off now? Can we get a beer?"

Janet pauses for a second, not through any sense of hesitation, but because that twist of unease is suddenly back, stronger than before. If this is something Sam doesn't want to talk about on base, she can already guess at least part of its substance.

"Sure. Just give me few minutes – I'll see you up top?"

Sam nods and vanishes as quietly as she appeared. Ten minutes later Janet finds her leaning against her car in the lot, arms wrapped tightly around herself, staring up at the stars. They pull out in convoy, Carter in front, and Janet follows her to a bar just off the interstate that they've stopped in before from time to time. Inside it's clad in wood, cabin-like, trophy animal heads and large wood-burning fire proclaiming it as the haunt of hunters, but then where in Colorado isn't? Sam picks a booth as far from the door as she can get and Janet goes to the bar for the first round. When she gets to the table, Sam's got the forefingers of her left hand pressed against her lips and is staring at the fire. Janet slides in opposite her, pushes one of the beers across the table, and waits her out. Sam shakes her head once, twice, takes a mouthful of beer, shakes her head again and then she says:

"He kissed her. He kissed her, and I watched it happen and now I can't stop thinking about it."

"Colonel O'Neill kissed Doctor Carter?" Janet can't imagine what other topic they could possibly be discussing, but the first thing she feels necessary to get out there is his rank. What surprises her, if anything is, in fact, her own lack of surprise.

Sam nods, staring into her drink.

"When?"

"Just before he came back through. It was a goodbye kiss, it was-" Sam breaks off, tips her head back, looks at the ceiling. " _God_."

"It must have been strange for you to see that."

Sam huffs a half-breath of laughter that has nothing to do with mirth. "That's one word for it. Hammond was standing right behind me and I…" She breaks off again, shaking her head, lips pressed tightly together. "I couldn't look away."

Janet reaches out a hand and covers Sam's clenched fist where it rests on the table. "You didn't do anything wrong, Sam, and neither did Colonel O'Neill. Hammond doesn't have any reason to-"

"It's not that," Sam bursts out. "What was he _doing,_ Janet? Why would he- I know why _she_ would have wanted it. But him? What was he thinking, what was going through his head? Was he thinking about her, or… or was he thinking about _me_? Did he want to know what it would feel like, did he-?"

"Sam," Janet says, interrupting, her stomach turning to ice. "Sam, Sam – stop. You can't think about this. You _can't_."

Carter gasps a breath and puts both hands over her face. "It's too late," she says, her voice muffled. "I can't stop. It just keeps going around and around in my head and I can't get past it. God! I keep seeing him kiss her and _I_ want to know. I want to _feel_ it. I want to feel _him_ , kissing _me_. It's turning me inside out, and I just-"

"Sam," Janet barks, a little more sharply than she intended, because the ice has turned to fear and it's biting at her insides. "Remember who you're talking about. Remember who you _are_. She _wasn't_ you. He _wasn't_ kissing you, and if he had been it would probably mean the end of your career and maybe his, too. Think of everything you've worked for, Sam. Think of what you've accomplished. Think of what's at stake!"

"I know," Sam whispers, dropping her hands. "I've told myself this over and over, believe me. I don't want this. I don't want to feel this. I _can't_ feel this, not for him. So what do I do, Janet? Tell me what to do. How do I get this out of my head?"

Janet reaches for her hands again, both this time. They clutch at each other across the table. "It'll pass. Give it time."

Sam makes a muffled sound in her throat. "I don't _have_ time. We're shipping out to PX8-709 tomorrow. And besides–" she pulls herself up.

"Besides what?"

Sam looks away, blinking, trying not to let her eyes fill with tears. "You didn't see it," she whispers. "It was… gentle. Slow. Loving, like-"

Janet squeezes her hands harder. " _Sam_."

"I know. I _know_. But Janet – this is the second time we've encountered an alternate universe and in both-"

"I know," Janet tells her.

"Not just dating. Not just involved. Engaged. _Married_."

"I _know_ , Sam. And it doesn't change a thing. Not here. You know that."

Sam sniffs, pulls one hand away from Janet's and wipes her eyes. "Maybe I should go out and get myself laid, right now. God knows it's been a while. Maybe that's all this is."

"Not a terrible idea."

There's a moment of muted amusement as Sam raises her eyebrows. "You think?"

"Sure. Look at this place. You walk up to that bar and you can choose any guy you want. I've got protection if you don't have any with you. Be safe, be smart, have fun. Maybe that's the best thing to do right now. I sure as hell can't think of any other prescription I can give you. What's the saying? The best way to get over someone is to get under someone?"

Sam wipes her face again. "Not so sure about the 'any guy I want' thing. I don't even have any make-up with me."

Janet looks her over. Sam's wearing a pale blue scoop-neck t-shirt and black skinny jeans and Janet knows for a fact that there's not a straight man on the planet who wouldn't thank his lucky stars, mascara or no mascara. "Don't be an idiot."

Sam sighs, and the moment settles. "This is all in my head anyway. He's never looked at me in any way other than as a soldier."

"Right," Janet says, dispelling that image of O'Neill loitering by the lab door, the tension she'd detected in his shoulders, that fraction of a second when he'd almost said something that wasn't a joke.

"But Christ, that kiss," Sam mutters, hands over her face again.

"Go and get us more beer," Janet orders. "It's your round and who knows? Mr Right Now might be waiting at the bar, just for you."

Sam nods and grabs their glasses. Janet watches her cross to the bar and lean on it. Then she glances up the room and something in her demeanour changes. Sam's hands grip the bar edge hard enough that Janet can see her knuckles turn white from where she sits. Janet leans forward, craning around the edge of their booth, trying to work out what her friend has seen, and when she works it out, the ice storm in her gut clutches so tightly at her insides that her heart stops.

He's dressed in civvies, too – a grey T under a black leather jacket, battered blue jeans, and Jack O'Neill is staring straight at Sam Carter across the eighteen feet of wooden floor that is all that stands between them.

Janet swears, silently, at the universe and everything in it.

[TBC]


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** I kind of had to write myself out of a corner here, as I really hadn't expected O'Neill to turn up at the end of the last chapter, but there you go. Hope someone out there likes it. Thanks to those who have said nice things, it means a lot.

* * *

Janet almost gets up and tells Sam to forget the drinks, that they can go back to hers for a glass of wine instead, but before she can move the bartender is there and Sam's asked for two more beers. Janet looks at O'Neill again and he's smiling slightly, raising his glass at his second in a kind of half-salute. Sam sticks her hands in her back pockets and nods back as the bartender puts the two drinks down in front of her. Janet sees O'Neill looking at them, calculating that Sam isn't alone, perhaps, although she doesn't think he's clocked who it is she's with. She wonders what he's thinking. He makes no move to close the space between them, to walk around the bar. His attitude has gone back to his usual relaxed _whatever, campers_ stance, and it's so convincing that Janet almost believes it. But there's still smoke drifting in the air from his expression when he first saw her standing there, and as good a soldier as he is, that was a visceral reaction he couldn't contain. It's enough to convince Janet that Jack O'Neill is fighting his own internal battle where Sam Carter is concerned.

Sam slides back into the booth and puts down their drinks. There's a high colour on her cheeks that makes her cheekbones seem as if they're carved out of marble.

"He's here."

"I saw. It's okay. We'll just finish our drinks and head out."

Sam nods, fingers restless against the condensation on her glass. "Maybe I should talk to him."

"Maybe. It depends. What is it that you want to talk about, and what do you want to say?"

Sam stares at her drink for a moment, and then shakes her head, as if working out that everything she can currently think of would be wrong. "This is such a mess."

"It doesn't have to be. There's things you can avoid and things you can't, Sam. And the things you can't avoid you just have to find a way to deal with as best you can."

Sam presses a thumb into her forehead. "I am _such_ an idiot."

"You're not. You just think your commanding officer is hot. As it happens, so do I. I would definitely slide him into my isolation chamber, if you know what I mean."

Sam's in the process of taking a mouthful of her beer as Janet says this, and almost spits it across the table in a shocked laugh that ends with a spluttered, " _Janet!_ "

As calculated, the absurd and unexpected filth of her words puts a distinct crack in the tension. Janet watches as Sam wipes the back of her hand across her mouth, both of them still laughing.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, and don't make this bigger than it is," Janet says, then. "What happened with Doctor Carter – no one would expect you to treat it as business as usual. Anyone would find it a strange situation, and it's been going around and around that huge brain of yours for two days. It's not surprising it's all you can think about. But tomorrow you'll be back out in the field, doing what you do best, you'll be working with him the same as always, and other things will take priority. Fancying Jack O'Neill does not make you an idiot. _Kissing_ Jack O'Neill would make you an idiot, and whatever you're feeling right now, we both know you're not going to do that, any more than I would do… the other thing. So everything's fine. Okay? Cut yourself some slack, Sam."

Sam takes a deep breath, releases it slowly, and nods. "You're right." She reaches out and puts one hand over Janet's, squeezing gently before she lets go again. "Thank you."

"I'm always here if you need to talk, you know that. And for the record, I don't think you getting a life outside work would be such a bad idea. You could do with blowing off some steam somewhere other than your lab."

"Yeah. It's just… time. And everything else has a habit of paling into insignificance compared with… you know."

"I get that. But hey – this weekend I'm planning to take Cassie up to Estes Park. Do some hiking, some riding, some climbing. Might be a good place to start. Why don't you come with us, if you're free?"

Sam smiles. "I'd really love that. Thanks."

"I can't promise you scintillating male company, but we'll find another way to tackle that."

"What was that about scintillating male company?"

His shadow falls across the table just a second before his voice reaches them. Janet and Sam both look up at the same time to find Jack O'Neill standing at the end of their booth, bottle in hand and a familiar amused expression on his face.

"Doctor, Major," he says. "Good to see two of the Air Force's finest supporting the local economy."

"Sir," Sam says, shooting to her feet, but he waves her down again.

"At ease, Carter. I don't want to spoil your evening. Just thought it polite to say hello. Feel as if I haven't seen you in the last two days."

"Uh… no sir. I've been pretty closeted in the lab, working on some… engineering issues."

He smiles easily, then glances at Fraiser. "Mind if I join you for a moment?"

Janet shifts up. "Of course not, sir."

The Colonel drops into the space she's left on the bench and leans his elbows on the table, long fingers fiddling with the label on his bottle of Fossil Evolution. Janet watches his profile, the slight frown on his face as he works out how to say whatever it is that's on his mind. She wonders what he's playing at, sitting here in a public bar opposite a junior officer that he seems to be on the cusp of developing feelings for, with another officer right there next to him.

"This probably isn't the place," O'Neill begins, "but I just wanted to apologise, for not talking to you sooner about the whole… twin thing."

Janet looks at Sam. Her friend is sitting as still as a statue, and suddenly Janet understands exactly what O'Neill's doing. He can't bring this up in the SGC any more than Carter could talk about it in her office, and he's choosing to do it now precisely because Janet's there. He wants a third party, a witness… _Maybe,_ she thinks, _he even wants Sam to have someone she trusts available after he's said whatever it is he feels he has to say._ Janet feels a little humbled that he has such confidence in her discretion.

"The truth is," O'Neill says, "I guess I've been having a hard time with it myself. Because we've encountered two alternate realities now, and in both… I've failed."

Sam's eyes widen for a second. "Failed, sir?" she asks, with blank incredulity.

O'Neill sits back a bit, chugs a mouthful of beer and whisks a finger around to indicate the bar, Colorado, the world. "Couldn't stop it. It's gone. And I'm dead. _Twice_. So what does that say about the twin versions of me?"

Sam blinks. "Sir, that doesn't make either of those versions of you a failure. It means that both versions of were ready and willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. To put everything else first, no matter what the personal cost."

O'Neill watches her for a moment, his eyes dark, and as he repeats her words back to her, Janet knows without a doubt that he knew that's exactly what Sam would say. " _'To put everything else first, no matter what the personal cost_.'"

Sam stares back at him, their gazes locked. "Yes, sir."

He drops his gaze back to the bottle. "I like to think I'd do the same in this reality, Carter. Whatever form that took."

There's a split second of silence, and Sam says, "I have absolutely no doubt that you would, sir."

O'Neill's watching her again, his lips drawn tightly together as he says, "I have the same faith in you, Major. Which is why there is no one else I would prefer to have on my team."

"And I would never want to serve on any other, sir, if I could help it."

A silence settles between them, and Janet thinks that they've both forgotten she's even there. They look at each other with a single table, an intergalactic war and the entire Air Force between them, and she knows she's seeing two people take a vow that couldn't be more binding if it was made of a physical chain. Yet that little knot of unease in her chest doesn't loosen, it doesn't slip away. Because Janet gets the sense that the first sacrifice has already been made, and neither of them realise just how big it is, or that from here on out there will be more, and they'll be greater every time. But what else can they do? If you can't avoid something, you just have to deal with it as best you can.

"I've got your back, sir." Sam says, quietly.

He smiles. "And I've got yours, Carter." He swallows the last of his beer and slaps his hand down on the table. "Right. I'm gone. See you bright and early for the briefing tomorrow, Major." He stands up, nodding at Janet, "Doctor."

"Goodnight, sir."

Sam sits silently for a moment or two after he's left. Then she lets out a long, shuddering breath and looks at Janet with a faint smile. Janet smiles back, but it's hiding the anxiety, because she knows now that she's watching one of her closest friends fall in love with a man she can't ever have.

"You know who you should call?" she says. "Graham Simmons. That boy would hear your voice and think all his Christmases had come at once."

Sam looks at her, and the smile turns into a sad kind of laugh. She pushes the forefinger and thumb of her left hand into the bridge of her nose, and Janet can't help looking at the bare skin of the finger where, in two other realities, the same man had put a ring.

[END]


End file.
